"Isn't that what it was?" He reaches down, covering Ren's hands with his own in a gentle but unyielding grip. "I'm not saying I would have gone quietly. I could say you should have died rather than kill me, sure. But what were we to each other, really, back then?"

Not friends, for sure, and not rivals. Not chessmates, either. Go partners, perhaps, both drawn together and yet fighting for every inch of territory.

"It was going to be you or me. And you at least would make it clean. I know that. Shido, though?" Revulsion enters his voice. "He would have peeled my skin off just to watch me dance. I was going to be just as dead no matter what you did."

As for going quietly, though... he's heard enough by now. Handcuffed, drugged and beaten, there might have been very little fight left in him. Hopefully he'll never know.